Use of the dart apparatus by the hermaphroditic land snail Polymita muscarum (Lea, 1834)

Use of the dart apparatus by the hermaphroditic land snail Polymita muscarum (Lea, 1834)
Reyes-Tur, Bernardo; Koene, Joris
2007-01-01 00:00:00
Animal Biology , Vol. 57, No. 2, pp. 261-266 (2007)  Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007. Also available online - www.brill.nl/ab Brief Communication Use of the dart apparatus by the hermaphroditic land snail Polymita muscarum (Lea, 1834) BERNARDO REYES-TUR 1 , ∗ , JORIS M. KOENE 2 1 Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad de Oriente, Ave. Patricio Lumumba, Santiago de Cuba 90500, Cuba 2 Institute of Ecological Science, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Abstract —Many species of pulmonate land snails are equipped with one or more so-called “love darts”. Even though the number and shape of these calcareous darts vary considerably between species, dart use has only been investigated in very few species. Here, we redescribe the mating behaviour of Polymita muscarum because previous reports did not include the use of the dart apparatus. Mating in this hermaphroditic land snail can be divided into three stages: courtship, copulation and post-copulatory activity. During courtship, full eversion of the genital atrium is reached, thus exposing the sensitive zone, genital lobes and dart apparatus. We observed that P. muscarum pushes the everted dart apparatus repeatedly onto different parts of the partner’s body
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Use of the dart apparatus by the hermaphroditic land snail Polymita muscarum (Lea, 1834)

Abstract

Animal Biology , Vol. 57, No. 2, pp. 261-266 (2007)  Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007. Also available online - www.brill.nl/ab Brief Communication Use of the dart apparatus by the hermaphroditic land snail Polymita muscarum (Lea, 1834) BERNARDO REYES-TUR 1 , ∗ , JORIS M. KOENE 2 1 Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad de Oriente, Ave. Patricio Lumumba, Santiago de Cuba 90500, Cuba 2 Institute of Ecological Science, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Abstract —Many species of pulmonate land snails are equipped with one or more so-called “love darts”. Even though the number and shape of these calcareous darts vary considerably between species, dart use has only been investigated in very few species. Here, we redescribe the mating behaviour of Polymita muscarum because previous reports did not include the use of the dart apparatus. Mating in this hermaphroditic land snail can be divided into three stages: courtship, copulation and post-copulatory activity. During courtship, full eversion of the genital atrium is reached, thus exposing the sensitive zone, genital lobes and dart apparatus. We observed that P. muscarum pushes the everted dart apparatus repeatedly onto different parts of the partner’s body